It is natural to feel furious, frustrated, or hopeless, whether you have witnessed a blatant racist assault or endured one or more micro-aggressions. It is also natural to want to bottle up your racist experiences or want to believe you haven't been influenced by them. Yet holding painful thoughts to yourself will just intensify them and affect your mental and physical health adversely. The first step in healing is to share your thoughts freely and honestly with others.
The simple act of talking to someone who makes you feel heard and understood can activate hormones that relax your nervous system, relieve tension, and alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression. In fact, a 2019 study found that black women who regularly opened up about their experiences of daily racism were less likely than those who kept their experiences to themselves to display signs of chronic stress, premature aging, and ill health.
Talking about your experiences will make them feel less vivid as well. For instance, identifying and communicating feelings of sorrow, frustration, or anxiety will help prevent you from being overwhelmed and better allow you in the future to cope with similar emotions.
Try to make face-to-face contact a priority. While it's not always possible in the age of social distancing, it's the most valuable act of looking another person in the eye when you talk. Obviously, the person you're talking to doesn't need to be able to provide solutions-systemic racism isn't something that's ever going to be easily overcome, but they need to be a good listener, someone who can consider your experiences and recognize your feelings.
Reach out to those nearest to you like your wife, family, and friends. Opening up is not going to make you a burden to anyone. Really, it will flatter most friends and loved ones that you trust them enough to trust them, and that will only improve the friendship.
Look for help inside your culture. Try reaching out to a cultural or community center, school or youth mentor, sports coach, religious group, like-minded people on social media, or a valued neighbor in your area if you feel that you don't have any friends or family who can listen without judging you negatively.
When they reach out to you, listen to them. Much like you would like them to support you, make yourself available to support them. Listening carefully to the perceptions of prejudice of another person and making them feel noticed and understood can be just as beneficial to you as it is to them. It can help alleviate your own stress, fight feelings of loneliness and depression, and protect your mental health by helping others. Think of it as being a therapist with one another.